Summary: Rees-Mogg doesn’t mind at all if his investments are unethical and it’s ok to lie about what pills can be used for – the Vatican would find that ok.

“Multi-millionaire Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg has admitted his investment firm profits from abortion pills – even though he wants to deny rape victims the right to terminations.

His company has nearly £5million-worth of shares in the Indonesian firm Kalbe Farma, which produces the pills to prevent ulcers.

They also trigger terminations, can be bought in pharmacies and are used widely in Indonesia – where there are an estimated two million illegal abortions each year.

Father-of-six Mr Rees-Mogg defended the investments and said he would not resign his investment post.

But he admitted: “It would be wrong to pretend that I like it but the world is not always what you want it to be. …

The staunch Catholic, who is tipped to succeed PM Theresa May, is a partner in Somerset Capital Management, the investment firm he co-founded in 2007.

The North East Somerset MP, 48, is paid more than £14,500 a month for 30 hours of work for the company.

He will not reveal the dividend payments he receives for his 15 per cent share in the firm, based in London’s upmarket Belgravia.

But partners have trousered nearly £60million between them since 2010.

According to this year’s interim report, two of Somerset Capital Management’s investment funds hold £4.8million in shares in Jakarta-based Kalbe Farma.

The pharmaceutical firm make misoprostol, a generic abortion drug sold under the brand name Invitec. They also manufacture oral contraceptives.

Invitec is marketed under its other use as a gastric ulcer preventer because abortion, other than in cases of rape or to save a mother’s life, is illegal in Indonesia.

But the international women’s rights organisation Women on Waves say it is available in Indonesian pharmacies.

The Dutch-based organisation advises women in Indonesia on how to obtain the drug and the circumstances in which terminations are legal in the country.

It says: “Abortion is permitted to save a woman’s life, in cases of foetal impairment and in cases of rape. Spousal authorisation is required. Misoprostol is available in pharmacies under the names Chromalux, Citrosol, Cytostol, Gastrul, Invitec and Noprostol.”

Mr Rees-Mogg defended the investments.

He said: “Kalbe Farma obeys Indonesian law so it’s a legitimate investment and there’s no hypocrisy. The law in ­Indonesia would satisfy the Vatican.”

In an earlier phone call, Mr Rees-Mogg said he had been unaware the company made the drug.

But he added: “I don’t manage the funds and haven’t done so since I became an MP. But the funds have to be run in accordance with the requirements of the investors and not according to my religious beliefs.

“This is not something I would wish to invest in personally but you have a duty as an investment manager not to impose constraints on investors.”

Mr Rees-Mogg accepted he did profit “in a very roundabout way”.

He went on: “This company does not procure the abortion of babies. It’s not my money in these investments and I profit from the total amount of client money we hold, not the investments we make.”

The Eton and Oxford educated MP caused uproar this month when he was interviewed on ITV’s Good Morning Britain by Susanna Reid and denounced abortion as “morally ­indefensible” in all circumstances.

That, he said, included cases of pregnancy caused by rape or incest. He added: “Life is sacrosanct and begins at the point of conception.”

The MP said this was not government policy, but his own personal view based on Catholic teachings.

… Misoprostol can be prescribed to prevent stomach ulcers, or induce labour in pregnant women by causing contractions.

But when used with another drug, mifepristone, it ends pregnancy in NHS medical abortions to avoid surgical procedures.

Misoprostol is often used alone to bring about an abortion, particularly in countries where termination is illegal.”

I wish I could claim that Rees-Mogg was being hypocritical and inconsistent – but that would imply that he has the moral intelligence to see the hypocrisy, an ability that he and his colleagues all seem to have been either born without or had clinically removed at the Conservative Rationale Adjustment Centre for Power Orientation and Training (or as it is commonly known CRACPOT).